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I haven't taken part in the exam, but I checked the questions. Yes, I believe that you should rewrite the sentence. They have given examples: 第71-75题 例如：小船 上 一 河 条 有 河上有一条小船。 Which characters? What kind of ticks?

I actually have a few copies of it! Thank you for the suggestion.

@Susi12You are welcome! Searching and reading in Chinese must simplify your life considerably.

We did a livestream today on YouTube (it's actually still in progress as I post this) about 金瓶梅, which also includes some info about/an overview of the "big four" 四大名著. Brendan's a great teacher, so it may be of interest to people in this thread: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Cv-H9My5gc

I took the TOCFL CAT exam for the first time on April 13th. I wanted to post my experience in a blog article here, but I don't have permission to create one. Anyway, here is a write up I did detailing my experience and feedback on the CAT format. https://elliottjones.substack.com/p/my-first-attempt-at-the-tocfl-exam?utm_source=profile&utm_medium=reader2

I have just finished Volume 1 of 射鵰英雄傳 by Jin Yong (and commented on it in the related "Book of the Year" thread). I think I'll finish the remaining 3 books at some point, but I don't want to slog straight through a 1200+ page book (especially one that uses a somewhat outdated, literary style of Chinese that isn't as useful for learning the contemporary language), so I'm stopping for now. I have to admit, though, that the story is really fun. I've never read Wuxia novels before, but I can now appreciate the appeal. I am now 1/3 of the way through Liu Cixin's 球状闪电, which is about a scientist who is obsessed with researching the "ball lightning" phenomenon; on his 14th birthday, his parents were incinerated by ball lightning right in front of him, and he can't stop thinking about it. However, ball lighting is relatively rare, unpredictable, defies all known mathematical models, has no practical applications that make it profitable or attractive to investors, etc., so his research efforts seem doomed from the very beginning. This is my 5th Liu Cixin book, and I'm already noticing certain predictable aspects of his style. He has several stock phrases that he repeats a lot, his characters often don't act like real people (they just serve as vehicles for abstract ideas, and they often interrupt the flow of the story to give long academic lectures), and the way he portrays female characters can be particularly awkward (I understand that many others have commented about that fact). His earlier works seem to be precursors to the "Three Body Problem," and they share a lot of similarities. It's almost like these earlier books were rough drafts of TBP. However, Liu's writing is interesting and clear enough to hold my attention, even though it can sometimes be silly/cheesy/awkward enough to make me laugh. Since I started reading native-level Chinese books in Fall 2019, my informal goal has been to read through 50 books, and this is my 49th. After one additional book, I'd like to focus more on my listening comprehension (which has actually already greatly improved in comparison to a few years ago!). In American health and fitness culture, we have a saying: "Don't skip leg day." If you work out your upper body and neglect your lower body, you might get a bulky upper body and pencil-thin legs. Well, in much the same way, I have unfortunately skipped "listening day." My reading skills are much better than my listening skills, so I'd like to shift my focus and read much less (though I will still read). So perhaps I will be on this thread much less often soon!

運は天に在り。This is a sentence of Classical Japanese. It's a well-known saying of UESUGI Kenshin上杉謙信，meaning "the destiny depends on the heaven (so it cannot be changed according to humans' wishes.)".

Well, how the exam is organised depends on professors. Generally in my university profs tend to choose paper-based exam if there is a final exam or quizzes. Yet for students in Division of Humanity or Division of Social Sciences, considerable(but not all) courses require thesis rather than a final exam. Nowadays profs prefer electronic documents more so as far as you can type in Chinese it'll be okay for you to handle with these theses. (Although academic Chinese is still a skill to be learnt if you want to do some academic writing in Chinese.)

This raises an interesting question. How will we know if someone's HSK Level 4 certificate is based on HSK 2.0 or HSK 3.0? There is a 2004 cumulative word difference between Level 4 of the HSK 2.0 and 3.0, wildly different levels of ability. Maybe we judge based on date of test, but we don't actually know exactly when the HSK 3.0 word lists will start to be used, right?

Here is another worth-reading post with similar information https://www.chinese-forums.com/forums/topic/60732-first-impressions-of-the-bilibili-manhua-app/

'高洁素雅' can be interpreted as 'elegant and refined', which is often associated with an aloof demeanor. However, It's unreasonable to expect a spinster, or an unmarried woman, to maintain such an aloof demeanor. '纯粹' could be translated as 'pure' or 'unadulterated', which might suggest an even more distant attitude. Her boyfriends have “walked away” for two reasons: firstly, because of her aloof manner, and secondly, due to her father’s conviction and subsequent indefinite prison sentence. That's my understanding based on my knowledge and culture background. Does this resonate with you?

If anybody else wants to take a break after the first volume, I strongly recommend you read until a bit past the halfway point of chapter 11 to have some sort of closure (you'll recognize it when you get there). I am going to take a couple of weeks off to restore my 内功.

It's 帝女花. Modern version of the song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbTcnK6IPSI&list=PL_nstHklNiCrznlTqJf6xu8wbeeoKDa67 (Watch 00:01 -01:28 of this episode) Wikipedia entry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Flower_Princess

@ChristianCC If I were in your position, I would compensate a local Taiwanese (maybe your language exchange partner) by having them record it for you. I would love to get a copy of that book myself as well.

Automatic translation will be free or close to free. A cheap translator will cost perhaps 1 cent per word; results will be bad. Any experienced translator is not going to work for peanuts. A good translator will cost more, I'm not sure of the current going rate. Even if the price per word is not high (say, 5 cent per word), the full cost of the translation of an entire novel tends to add up. You can test several translators and see which one you like best. Make sure you pay them for the test. If you can read Mandarin, you can judge for yourself which one you prefer. If not, a good measure is whether they ask good questions to ensure the best possible translation. What is your plan with the translated novel? Do you want to have it published through a Chinese publishing house? If so, you need to inform yourself on how Chinese publishing works and how to get a Chinese publisher interested in your work. To my knowledge, self-publishing is not an option in China, you are only allowed to publish through an official publishing house. Or are you planning to publish it online? In that case, you need to find out how the online novel industry works.

Thank you.

Thank you both!

Currently watching (and almost finished) 繁城之下, a murder mystery set in Ming (?) China. Well plotted and well acted, nothing bad to say about it really. Both me and my wife is looking forward to seeing the conclusion to the story tonight. And the biggest draw: only 12 episodes! As @StChris recently mentioned, nobody wants these bloated 40 episode seasons... Give us something with a tight and focused script, no by-the-rails forced love stories or useless side-stories that take up 5 hours. I do have hope that Chinese productions are learning though, it feels like we've gotten much more of these high-quality shorter stories these last few years.

Thanks to both of you that is very interesting. I am a bit relieved that they are not exclusively speaking in some Mandarin accent that I am supposed to understand. And yes Lu I think I will find an easier show to follow!

Nice job!

I use the Glados one with ChatGPT virtually every day. (You can see me ask ChatGPT questions in my YouTube videos.) If it doesn't work I use Poe.com. I sometimes have had trouble with getting it to run on my phone via the app (sometimes ChatGPT just doesn't respond to questions I ask), but it works on my laptop fairly continuously. Struggling to access ChatGPT in China might not be a VPN issue: it's not just that ChatGPT is blocked in China, it's that ChatGPT doesn't operate in China. Glados has these comments on their website about OpenAI.

Worth a try for sure. I'll stop in there within the next week or so and see what they say.

@沈立言 if you are still active on the forum, could you please upload your climbing vocabulary sheet again? thanks!

The original text on the folding fan is as follows: The right part features ‘On Dragon’ by Hanyu. The left part represents the writer’s own thoughts and words, constituting the essence of the work. "Dragons can be big or small, can ascend or hide. When big, they exhale clouds and mist; when small, they conceal their forms and hide their traces. When ascending, they soar through the universe; when hiding, they lurk within the waves. In the depth of spring, dragons change with the times, just as people who have achieved their ambitions roam the world freely. Dragons, as creatures, are like the heroes of the world, the so-called gentlemen who are strong and unremitting in their efforts. Written by Wei Xiaozhong in the year of Jia Shen (Jia Shen year is one of the 60 years in the lunar calendar cycle, such as 1824, 1884, 1944, 2004, etc. These are all years of the Monkey in the Chinese Zodiac)."

Hello, I want to download this Stickystudy app but has it been deleted from the App Store? I think the app is no longer downloadable. I need it 😕